Windows to the Soul
by destinykeyblade
Summary: Days before the apocolypse, a lonely angel sat looking at the world that was to be destroyed, mourning its loss in silence - when he encountered something that made him want to hope for a different outcome, even as it broke his 'heart'. Set near the end of Season 4.


Hello, all. To those who know me, no, I'm not dead. Those who don't, howdy :) Let's get straight to the point - this story was written *literally* right after I finished season 4, which is the farthest I've seen in the series, so if I've messed up some aspect of Castiel's character, cut me some slack. His little speech to Dean in the Samhain episode (I believe it was 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester') leads me to believe that he cares about humans more than he lets on, and no matter how the angels are presented in Supernatural, I can't imagine them truly being callous towards children. Thus, his behavior in this fic.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my imagination... but a friend of mine owns a Castiel t-shirt :3 I also don't own the song 'Musique Pour La Tristesse De Xion', but it is the recommended background music for this story. Youtube will help you with that.

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The sounds that filled the crowded park were almost ear-shattering, the childrens' shrieks rising to a crescendo as a large group of them fought to hear one another over their parents' reprimanding shouts. Silence was often worse, however, and so he stayed on the bench, an unspeaking observer to the chaos that was the playground. He drew in a breath of the air, polluted though it was. The emissions from the vehicles driving past behind him were possible, if not easy, to ignore, and he was left with the mingling scents of the grass and trees. Some bore fruit, which put a sweet aroma in the air; the smell of the world was that of sunlight. The wind blew gently, tousling the hair of the running children and caressing Castiel's hidden wings, flowing softly through the feathers as though it were a friend come to give him comfort. He held back a heavy sigh, focusing on the humans to keep his attention from that which was sure to come. As he again breathed in the summer air, a small noise came from his left - and, abrubtly, he realized that he was not alone.

A tiny human child had come to sit on the bench with him; and it was very clear from her manner - once she had climbed onto the wooden seat with fingers and elbows and knees - that she was aware of his presence. For it was a small girl, with chubby legs and arms and miniscule fingers, carefully cinched into a white dress and sandals; presumably her Sunday best, as most of the families present had been in church an hour before. Her face - also rather round - was framed with small, golden ringlets that bounced when she did. Her face was tilted away from him, her attention pointedly on something else, and she kicked her shoes together in a show of innocence that Castiel, bluntly, did not buy for a minute. He turned his eyes forward, away from the girl, and mere seconds later she scooted herself closer to him.

He glanced at her again, moving only his eyes, but the child was already focused on something other than him. Instead of her feet, she was now using her fingers to keep the rest of her still, attempting and failing to drum them on her leg as she had no doubt seen her parents do. A small sigh escaped him as he looked away once more; the little girl wasted no time sliding even nearer.

_I should leave,_ was his thought, and it was right, but he ignored it, trying to believe that he was curious how the child had spotted him when he hadn't meant to be seen. He failed miserably, but stayed on the bench anyway, humoring the girl by glancing at her and away another time. Her next scoot brought her close enough to touch him, which she did without a hint of shyness, playing with the hem of his overcoat. The wind blew another small breeze across the playground, forceful enough to toss the tiny ringlets into their owner's face. She frowned and reached up, swatting at her hair - and Castiel became as a statue, feeling the skin of her arm brush against his left wing.

She stopped as well, her head falling to the side in puzzlement. Cas's self-control was sorely tested when he felt those pudgy fingers run along an invisible feather; he wanted to leave RIGHT THEN - but what was meant to be a last look at the child stopped him. There was an expression of utter delight on her face, pure happiness and almost bliss in her eyes as she stroked the soft down. The innocence of childhood had never been more clearly represented to him, and the wonder she held within her was not something he could bring himself to take away. He finally turned his head to look at her. She met his gaze fearlessly, a wide, joyful smile stretched across that pudgy face. Then, suddenly, the little girl's smile began to slip; in short order her entire face had crumpled into a teary frown. The child's bottom lip was wavering.

Cas was unsure of what to do. The experience he had with humans in general was so very limited, and with children he'd had none at all. He decided that the safest option was to remain silent, as he didn't know what it was making her act this way. The little girl sniffled, the wobbling growing worse - and then he was surprised, for there were intelligible words coming from her mouth.

"You have sad eyes," she managed, her voice as unstable as her chin. Her own eyes, a deep, soulful blue like the ocean, were filling up with water as she gazed into his. "Why do you have sad eyes?" she asked, and the question came out broken, as though he had betrayed her in some way. Castiel thought, but had no answer to give, and the child came closer still, burying her face between his arm and wing. Her nose, miraculously not running yet, was smashed against his elbow, her right cheek resting softly on his feathers. Sniffing violently, she rubbed her face against them, taking obvious comfort in the feel of them on her skin. A moment passed, and when the girl came away to look at him once more, the tears spilled over onto her cheeks.

"Mommy says eyes are win'ows," she whispered, unable to pronounce the 'D' in the word. "Win'ows to the sowl." Her tears streamed down, falling to land with gentle _plop!_s on the wooden bench and Cas's coat as she reached up a tiny, trembling hand to lay her fingertips on his chin, the highest she could reach. "Why are yours so sad?"

_Because the end of the world is coming,_ he thought at her, even his mind-voice deadened of emotion. He felt empty inside, watching this child - this baby - cry for him. _And you will all be gone when it arrives. No more humans._ The hollowness receded for a moment, just long enough for him to feel a stab of pain like a dagger through his heart. _No more you, little girl._

His brief moment of emotion must have showed on his face, or in his 'sad eyes', because the girl began to cry in earnest. She sat there for a moment, tears and mucus blending unpleasantly together, before she could take no more and, like all children, sought comfort. She clambered into his lap, oblivious of his involuntary stiffening, and put her arms as far around him as she could, burying her face into his shirt.

Feelings were frowned upon so deeply; now, for the first time, Castiel thought he may have understood why. They interfered with judgement and reason, with the ability to carry out a mission. Emotions were dangerous things. In that moment, however, Castiel decided not to care. The apocolypse would begin scant days from this one, and then there would be nothing left. There would never be another chance to watch the humans, his Father's children, live out their fleeting lives. There would never be a little girl whose heart filled with joy from the feel of his wings against her fingers. And so he gently put his hands on the child's back, one over top of the other due to how incredibly small she was, and held her there until her tears and hiccups subsided, upon which she pulled back to look at him again.

The girl looked up at him, scrutinizing; her gaze was almost analytical as she studied his facial features, a frown etched into her forehead. Hesitantly, she reached up again and touched him, first his cheek, then underneath his eye. Cas let them slide closed, and she touched his eyelid, her fingers as light as a butterfly's wing. Her hand slid to his nose, then down to his mouth and his chin again, and Castiel got the sense that she was trying to memorize him. He looked at her blankly as she frowned at him, clearly troubled.

"You glow... You're so pretty," she whispered, uncomprehending. "You shouldn't be so sad." She opened her mouth to say more, but an adult voice interrupted her before she began.

"Angel!" a woman cried, dashing across the uneven ground toward the bench. No sooner had she come within arm's reach of her daughter than the woman had scooped her up, holding the little girl close. "Oh, Angel," she said raggedly; her fear was evident. She looked hard at Castiel, who was silently shell-shocked at the name she had given to her baby. "I'm so sorry, sir," she apologized, and while her voice sounded earnest, it was immediately clear where Angel had learned her intense gaze. "I hope she didn't bother-"

"It's alright," he said, cutting her off; her eyes narrowed a degree. He softened his tone before adding, "No harm done." The girl's mother watched him a moment more before the suspicion in her expression faded. She nodded at him. "I'm sorry," she repeated, and he knew the apology was for the way she had regarded him. He pushed down a smoldering feeling that was rising in him, summoned by thoughts of how the humans mistreated one another, particularly children. Pushing those away as well, he offered a small nod in return, and she hefted the child higher in her arms before turning and walking toward a young boy with a guilty look about him.

"I asked you to watch her!" came her voice, drifting back to Castiel on the wind. "For five minutes!" "But Mom, we were-"

Their argument became hushed as the mother lowered her voice to threaten her son with grounding; Castiel could have listened, had he cared, but the little girl had his attention again. She was staring back at him over her mother's shoulder, eyes filled with a heavy sorrow. Slowly, she lifted her hand and bent her fingers up and down, waving at him. He shouldn't have, and he knew it, but again, Cas took the liberty of not caring, using the impending apocolypse as an excuse to flaunt the usual rules. He raised his hand and waved once - left, right - then put it down. The child, Angel, replaced her little hand on her mother's shoulder, and some of the sorrow seemed to lift from her. A smile, not quite as big or happy as her first, made its way across her face. The dagger shoved into his heart again as the family crested the ridge of a small hill and dissapeared over it.

The heavy sigh that he had been fighting from the start finally broke free. Castiel slumped, leaning his head toward clasped hands in a very human show of unhappiness. Then with another sigh, he stood and dissappeared, winging his way back toward the Winchesters. It was a dark night at the hunter Bobby's home, far away from this sunny park, and Dean Winchester was praying - insolently, but nonetheless, and so he would go. Though he would admit it to no one, Castiel was praying, too - a wordless, endless prayer, that though the prophet had Seen the end, somehow, it might be avoided; that that child be allowed to grow and experience the beauty and wonders the world still held, to learn to love and laugh and cry and all the things he as an angel was forbidden.

_Ironic,_ he thought wryly, _that a being so full of emotion would be named after beings who have none. The humans don't know the truth, and they're most likely happier that way. ...As if it matters now. It's over._

And yet, still, he hoped, the expression of pure joy on the tiny girl's face forever imprinted on the heart he wasn't meant to have.

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Et... voila! I swear I don't know how he does it, but Misha Collins has that sad face down to an _art_. That expression has almost brought me to tears several times, and most of it is the look in his eyes. It's as though there's this deep, unyielding sorrow inside him... and thus, this was born. Hope you enjoyed it to some degree. Reviews, while not demanded, are always nice :) Oh, and you'll have to forgive me for the girl's name; I couldn't help myself. Thanks for reading!

~destinykeyblade


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